My Microsoft Surface is a constant companion. It is absolutely central to my workflow.

One of the challenges I’ve had with it is battery life. There’s a lot of things you can do to help with your battery life but one simple thing I’ve done, for now, is to set the max CPU when on battery to 99%.

Setting the max CPU to 99% prevents the CPU from going into Turbo mode. For me, this accomplishes two things:

Set your maximum CPU while on battery to 99%

Step 2: Go to advanced power settings and go to the new option: Processor Power management

Set the on battery to 99%.

There is no step 3.

You should notice the behavior difference fairly quickly on battery. For one thing, when you have Edge running on an ad intensive site or are watching a video your CPU speed will not go nearly as high (on the other hand, it won’t get power throttled to 0.5Ghz either which is a big benefit).

Well after trying this tweak for my SP3, I can definitely see the improvement in battery life, but more importantly, the fan barely turns on now when doing light tasks. It really is a night/day difference.

BTW is the Surface Pro 4 reliable? I read too many awful comments about the unresponsiveness of the screen. I'm hesitating between the SP4 and a VAIO X Canvas for for my artistic work. I need a modular system that can replace a graphic tablet.